Tag: George Roop

(Roop: seen here enforcing the theory that a straight shot to the head will kill any zombie.)

Looking to rebound from his controversial decision loss to Hatsu Hioki at UFC 137, featherweight contender and TUF 8 alum George Roop has recently agreed to face Cub Swanson at UFC on Fox 2. Prior to the Hikoi loss, Roop scored a brilliant thrid round TKO over Josh Grispi at the TUF 13 Finale in June. Swanson, on the other hand, is coming off a less-than-controversial second round submission via arm triangle choke to Ricardo Lamas in his UFC debut at UFC on Fox 1. The Team Jackson product has dropped three of his last five and should need a win here if he wants to continue fighting under the Zuffa banner.

Fun fact: Roop hasn’t put together a win streak since 2007 and has gone loss-win in his past 9 bouts (excluding a draw with Leonard Garcia), so pure logic dictates that he will emerge victorious from this one. You can’t argue with that science, Potato Nation.

(Hey, it’s that thing from my nightmares! So weird seeing you during the daytime! / Photo via @bjpenndotcom)

It’s been a while since we’ve tried to convince you fine people of something totally ridiculous. But looking through Saturday’s UFC 137: Penn vs. Diaz card, I feel like playing devil’s advocate on a few things. So keep an open mind, and read on…

Donald Cerrone has recently claimed that he’d like to face Nam Phan in his next fight, because Phan beat up his best friend Leonard Garcia earlier this month then allegedly said that if Garcia’s coaches were any good they would have taught him how to throw straight punches. Now, the average observer might say, “Look Donald, you’re on a five-fight win streak — shouldn’t you be more concerned about challenging for the belt at lightweight than chasing personal rivalries with unranked dudes at 145?”

But I say screw it, Cowboy, you do you. Not for the revenge aspect, which is completely silly. But because the lightweight division has too many contenders to the throne, and the featherweight division doesn’t have enough.

When Japanese featherweight Hatsu Hioki officially joined the UFC, we all felt pretty cool for calling that one. We even suggested a first opponent for him in Kenny Florian. Well, turns out the UFC brass doesn’t see things the same way that we do. I’ll pause for you to add your own sarcastic comments.

Rather, Sherdog is reporting that George Roop will be Hioki’s first opponent in the UFC. This fight is scheduled to take place at UFC 137 in Las Vegas. So far, the only other fight to be announced for UFC 137 is the welterweight showdown between Strikeforce champion Nick Diaz and UFC champion Georges St. Pierre. George Roop is 2-1-1 under Zuffa as a featherweight, most recently punching out Josh Grispi at The Ultimate Fighter 13 Finale back in June.

Pettis, and his hopes at a title shot, come crashing down (pic: MMAFightNews.net)

Judging from the sparse commentary throughout last night’s live blog, most of you were out sipping $20 Manhattans and discussing the latest issue of The New Yorker while a few of us sat on the couch watching free cage fights and loathing ourselves. It’s cool. You know what you did was wrong, and you came back home to us. We forgive you, and we’ll give you the gist of what went down.

It only took three minutes and fifty four seconds to send ten weeks of buildup crashing to the mat. The bout between Tony Ferguson and Ramsey Nijem was competitive, with both men finding a home for their hands, but Ferguson was able to employ his collegiate wrestling experience and the time spent with Lesnar’s camp after the show to dictate the fight and set the pace. Following a couple of successful takedowns, Ferguson flipped Ramsey’s switch with a left hook and Season 13 of The Ultimate Fighter crowned its asshole champion.

Say what you will about The Ultimate Fighter (not like you need an invitation), but the finale shows tend to be pretty damn fun. This season, we actually have two fairly solid finalists, a dynamite co-main in Pettis-Guida, plus a handful of other matchups calibrated for striking showdowns and crowd amazement.

Here’s a quick and dirty rundown of the fights scheduled for this weekend, with a few of those fancy moving pictures that you like so much. Who ya got?

Ramsey Nijem

VS

Tony Ferguson

Well, either this fight is the one you’ve been waiting for, or you’re just wondering what these two nobodies are doing on your UFC card. Tune in to find out which guy gets a contract with the UFC. (Spoiler Alert: It’ll be both of them.)

During last night’s episode of Sportsnet’s MMA Connected, the show’s host "Showdown" Joe Ferraro revealed that if Mark Hominick handily beats George Roop at UFN 23 and comes out of the fight without injury, he will fight Jose Aldo at UFC 129 in Toronto on April 30.

A veteran of 27 MMA bouts, Hominick’s only losses in the past six years have come at the hands of three highly-touted fighters: Grispi, Rani Yahya and Hatsu Hioki. His second bout with Hioki, which he lost by a razor-thin majority decision and was contested under the TKO banner is widely regarded as one of the greatest featherweight fights in Canadian MMA history.

For an idea what Aldo-Hominick might look like, check out that fight after the jump.

(On the bright side, that pig was offered an immediate rematch in Arizona. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle.com)

Between Jose Aldo’s latest title defense/demolition, the off-the-chain Cerrone vs. Varner rematch, George Roop’s KO of the Year candidate, and the other violent stoppages from Torres and Zhang, last night’s WEC event delivered the goods. (LOL @ any poor bastard who decided to watch Bellator instead!) Here’s some things you might want to know with Aldo vs. Gamburyan in the books…

— $10,000 bonuses were handed out to the following fighters: George Roop (Knockout of the Night) for being the first guy to finish the Korean Zombie, which he did with a perfectly placed LHK; Miguel Torres (Submission of the Night) for beating Charlie Valencia to the mat and finishing him with a RNC; and Donald Cerrone/Jamie Varner for their three-round co-headlining battle that was totally OMFG.

In this week of The Ultimate Fighter it was the last fight before the semi-finals. We are getting down to the wire. The two guys who are fighting, John Polakowski and George Roop, are both real good friends of mine. Me and George go way back since the Arizona days; John is just a guy I met in the house but how can you not like him? He just loves life. Him and his hugs, and you gotta love his saying “FIRE THE CANNONS!!!!”

Before the fight everyone is expecting a prank but who would do it to which guy first? They decided to pull the prank on John and his Lucky Charms. That was a mistake!! I thought it was hilarious due to the fact that they took the time to remove every marshmallow from the box. After all, they are the best part. John was pissed. He announced no more hugs for the blue team — he means business. He is like a man possessed. During training I’d been working with John on his wrestling. I know George has some good ground game so I wanted to help out my teammate.

During George’s training with Team Mir, he got his hand caught up in the cage and it was fucked up. It looked like a surgical balloon had been blown up. George is a tough dude so I knew he would be out there anyway. I thought this would give a definite advantage to John. Closer to fight time John started to become his old self again, and decided that he and George would hug before the fight. This was hilarious — I personally wouldnt be able to do that, especially with the guy standing in the way of a six-figure contract to the UFC. But hey, that’s John for you.